Airstrikes pounded the area around Iraq's largest dam on Saturday in an effort to drive out militants who captured it earlier this month, as reports emerged of the massacre of some 80 members of the Yazidi religious minority by Islamic extremists.

Residents living near the Mosul Dam told The Associated Press that the area was being targeted in airstrikes, but it was not immediately clear whether they were being carried out by Iraq's air force or the US which last week began launching air strikes aimed at halting the advance of the Islamic State group across the country's north.